Is it reasonable to ask a woman to change her profile picture?

[NewmanintownRob]

I have someone I am seeing and she has a picture of her and her deceased husband as her main profile picture on Facebook. I keep in touch with a lot of family and friends through Facebook, but I’m not obsessed by it. However, she has been a widow for four years and I am fully supportive of her sons and family and her deceased husband’s family. However, trying to friend her on Facebook and get her starting to learn more about my family is challenging. if she just simply had a picture of herself, it would be easier - her family and friends know about me and her, most of my family and friends know about me and her. I have a picture of her in my apartment and on my phone - she has no pictures of me in-home or on her phone. I’m trying to advance this to the next level and I’m starting to get worried that she isn’t wanting that. I am giving a time but it does make me a little uncomfortable. AIBU ?

SUCH a passive aggressive response. Full of sarc and snark at the "meanies" and derogatory to the woman you profess to adore - does the fact she has "never left town" make you better than her?

Edited to add: the more I read back on this and listen to your tone, the more I am convinced that despite some of the things you've said, you think you are the catch and how dare she waste your time.

This is one seriously creepy situation.

You are in fact stalking this woman.

You are obsessing jealously about her, you're possessive about her, and have turned her in your mind into a slut/ whore.

If you think a widowed mother has time to entertain men in her bed, you need to give your head a wobble.

Get out of this woman's life before she calls the police and reports your creepy and stalkerish behaviour.

You have interpreted the kindness of a random woman (we women are conditioned to be kind when faced with persisten men) as something completely different.

As I said before I fear we will read about the op in the papers.
Imagine being this blinkered
Seek professional help @NewmanintownRob

This in spades.

Sounds like you have a lot of growing up to do @NewmanintownRob You have had a lot of good advice on here, but are throwing your dummy out of your pram and sulking, because it's not what you want to hear. And so WHAT if this woman has never left the town she grew up in?!

I HATE this snobby, arrogant attitude that some people have when they've travelled quite a bit, or left the town they grew up in some years ago, like they're soooooo superior to people who never moved away and haven't travelled much - or at all... 🙄 You're no better than her you know!

@NewmanintownRob

I’m just trying to get some advice here and see if this is wasting my time on a widow.

FGS just do her a favour, and end it with her. She deserves better!

Before you learn how to date anyone, you should probably learn how to develop self-awareness, humility, and open mindedness. Hope this helps!

I have to agree with this. I'm not the only MNer who has picked up on the conflict in your tone and approach.

And what is with defining this woman as The Widow?

…worth my effort and time to try to date a widow …
…I’m just trying to get some advice here and see if this is not wasting my time on a widow…
…that is the dilemma of dating a widow…
…perhaps assigned that she’s not ready to move on as a widow…
…I just have never met someone who was a widow...
…I have never been around a widow before that was like this…

You appear to relish using the word. It might be what she's been through but I can guarantee it is not who she is. But then again, I hope she has got you tagged as Creepy Old Divorcee.

What do you mean by “I have talked to her about it”? I wonder because it seems you still have no idea what she wants from your relationship. You shouldn’t ask her to change her FB profile picture, but it’s absolutely reasonable for you to have in in-depth discussion about the relationship, your feeling about her and the relationship and what she feels/wants. When you are both on the same page and if that page is a serious relationship, with strong feelings for her, then and only then, should you tell her how you feel about the picture. The decision whether or not to change it, is then hers alone.

Frankly, neither her social media pages, nor her grieving, are yours to control.

These things take time. My first husband and I were serperated (amicably) for a couple of years before I met my current husband. I continued to wear my wedding ring, not so much because I wanted to stay married to my first, but because I just didn’t feel ‘available’. After a year or so, when we knew the new relationship was going somewhere, he asked me, gently, why I still wore my ring; tbh I had pretty much forgotten it, but it made me think about things and I felt quite ready to take it off. I don’t think there was anything sinister, I wasn’t clinging on to the past, it was just something I had worn for so many years, and the. It was easy to let go.

Other way around for me. My partner’s wife died 4 years ago. He lives with me and we have photos of her up and them together. He wears their wedding bands around his neck (they are joined together) he goes to where her ashes are on her birthday, Christmas, Easter, wedding anniversary, and the day she died. Her picture is on his phone every time he opens it as the Home Screen. I love him for it. His profile on Facebook is the two of them together happy with their dog on a hill side. I absolutely love 🥰 that it hasn’t changed and she isn’t being erased. In another world they loved each other and would still be together. I never met her but she sounds like she was a force of nature, she helped to make him the man he is and he’s a better person for it.

I absolutely don’t want it to change. He talks about her and that part of our life. She is part of our family.

Has she been allowed to bring some of her family photos to your house? Eg one of her, her husband and the children. If not maybe consider it or ask her to.

I’m not in competition with my partner’s wife, she is part of him, not a ghost in the attic. You can’t erase the past. I think from recollection we were talking one weekend and he was spending a lot of time with my children and I just said have you got a photo of her you can bring over for the children and then he did. It was great for them to understand what she looked like etc and when his son visits family photos are up.

I have never been jealous or doubted he loves me. His grief isn’t linear and it’s not an injury where you get better and better and forget. His wife, his life partner that he totally adored - she has tragically died- he can still get bad days torn by grief and I hold him. I was honoured enough to be taken to where her ashes where on her birthday and I asked my partner if I could leave her a letter that I had written and he was so lovely and let me have a few minutes. In that note I promised her she would always be part of my family now and loved and I mean it.

Try changing your perspective I know my partner loves me, I know how her treats his wife 4 years on, I know the man loves and loves forever - and that’s part of why I love him.

OP I feel for you. I think the fact she still has a picture of herself with her late husband on FB is symbolic. It seems she's not ready to move on just yet. I'm not saying she should erase her late husband or anything but if she was ready for a serious committed relationship with another man my hunch is she'd use a picture of herself on her own at least. A few months is still a short time to be seeing someone. I think it would be good to give her more time as you clearly like her. Dating is one thing but making a commitment is another. I don't know what an appropriate length of time would be before talking about commitment or even marriage. A year? 18 months? I don't think it would be a good idea to ask her to change the photo. This would come across as weird and, as others have said, controlling. The relationship is still new so fragile and needs to be nurtured carefully. Wishing you all the best.

An acquaintance of mine still has her profile pic as her and her deceased husband on Facebook. He’s been gone 8 years and she now has 2 children with his best friend, l find it a little odd. But you can’t tell her what to do. It might not even occur to her what her pic is on there. Asides from everything he was her husband and she probs loved him very much. Don’t overstep.

This would be the same as asking her to remove a picture of her and a deceased parent. Utterly crass and shameful.

No its not ok to ask her to change her picture.
I write as a widow myself, IF i was in a relationship and he asked me to replace my picture hed be gone out of my life.
Why have you a problem with a dead person, am sure her heart is big enough for both of you, to shove him over a bit and make room for you, be supportive.
She may be leaving the picture up out of respect for his family.

Massively this.

OP thinks he's brilliant, and certainly superior to this little woman who doesn't leave her town.

What the fuck, "Facebook friends all over the country" has got to do with her updating her profile picture, no one knows. That's because it's got nothing to do with this.

OP's ego doesn't want his friends and family to see that "fabulous him" is less important than her deceased DH. He can't bear people openly seeing he's not number one. He doesn't even seem to have grasped that he's not.

This is nothing to do with the presence of exDH. This is his ego not coping with having to take a hit when his friends say "who's that guy in her picture?" It's all about his image.

I am not insecure

Mate, there is a cloying air of insecurity in everything you say.

She may be ready to date but deleting that facebook profile might be a lot harder than you think. Not the same but i’ve come to realise that I can’t change my FB cover photo, as its my dad and my kids. He’s been gone 6yrs now, but it’s just somewhere i’m not ready to do. Obviously different for her being a DH, and maybe the time she deletes that is when she moves in with someone, or even when she remarries. I dated someone who had his marriage still listed etc, it never bothered me, I wasn’t even his friend on FB, didn’t see the need at dating stage. Maybe that would have been addressed later down the line, only we never got that far

‘A woman’ ? Oh you’ve managed to grab yourself one of them woman things have you. Yes it’s fine to erase or ignore the bits you don’t like, that’ll work out well

This!

In my experience 'chemistry' is a 2-way thing, inasmuch as you know the other person feels the same way. If you have to ask yourself how she feels about you, there is no real chemistry.

I was widowed over 20 years ago. DP knows I love my late husband and I love him too. If he had ever asked me to put away my husband's photograph he would have been out of the door before he knew it. It's about respect.

Apologies edited post out. I didn't mean to response direct to you

This is just weird. If you want her to get to know your friends and family, take them to meet friends and family. Maybe you need to wean yourself off Facebook as it’s making you believe the online world is somehow significant. It’s not.